


If Only In My Dreams

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Christmas fic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masterbation, Stanford Christmas, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:16:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5542985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It was Christmas for fuck's sake, and his goddamn brother wouldn't answer his goddamn phone! Not that the holiday necessarily had anything to do with it. It wasn't like the Winchester family ever really celebrated or held to the practice of any holiday or special occasion, religious or otherwise. It wasn't like Sam really deserved to have his calls answered either.</em><br/><br/>It's Sam's first Christmas at Stanford. Away from Dean. He didn't think it was going to be this hard. He really didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only In My Dreams

'Damn it, Dean.'

Sam threw his phone into the corner of the couch, and took a long draw off his beer. He didn't normally drink. He'd seen enough of John's sullen, drunken moods to not want to join the family rank and file. But it was Christmas for fuck's sake, and his goddamn brother wouldn't answer his goddamn phone! Not that the holiday necessarily had anything to do with it. It wasn't like the Winchester family ever really celebrated or held to the practice of any holiday or special occasion, religious or otherwise. It wasn't like Sam really deserved to have his calls answered either.

He hadn't talked to Dean in nearly six months. He'd left some voicemails on Dean's phone, and Dean had called and left a few for him as well, but they hadn't actually spoken to each other since Sam had left late last July in the middle of the night. He hadn't intended on leaving like that, or that soon, but John had forced his hand, or Sam had let him anyway, getting as riled as he did and having to match his father temper for temper. Sam had stormed out with nothing but his backpack, because he'd been too damn mad to stick around and pack his duffle, and caught the first bus out of town headed west the next morning. 

Somewhere during the screaming match between Sam and John, Dean had slipped out and disappeared, and Sam hadn't seen him since. 

He'd roughed it for a couple weeks waiting for the dorms to clear out of their summer occupants and Stanford's fall semester to get underway. By the time he moved in, he had three dollars and fifty-seven cents left in his pocket of the emergency hundred he kept stashed in his bag, the clothes on his back, a spare pair of jeans, and nothing else. 

About three days after he'd taken up residence, and his roommate Brady had taken pity on him and outfitted him with at least the basics of living and a couple of decent meals, Sam's duffle, packed to bursting with all his own clothes plus a few extras, a flask of holy water, his Taurus, a clip each of silver and iron rounds, silver knife, and a roll of twenties that came out close to three hundred dollars, mysteriously appeared on his bed one afternoon while he and Brady were out scouting the best route to all their classes.

Dean had been there. There was no question in Sam's mind. John sure as hell wouldn't have cooled down enough by then to make such a peace offering, and Sam was two hundred and ten percent sure if he'd had anything close to a fixed address that Dean could have found sooner, the duffle would have shown up the very next day. That was Dean being Dean. He'd taken care of Sam all his life, and no amount of anger was going to keep Dean from continuing to do that. Whether or not he ever showed up in person or answered his phone, Sam knew he was being looked after, even from a distance.

He fumbled under the threadbare pillows at the corner of the couch and came back up with his phone. He took another long pull on his bottle, flipped it open and hit redial.

'Come on, Dean. Pick up your fucking phone...please,' he begged into the dark of the room and the persistent buzz on the other end of the line that gave way to a familiar message.

'Leave a message. If you need me, I'll find you.'

'You macho, cryptic, asshole!' Sam shouted at the phone, and this time when he threw it, it hit the far wall and bounced on his bed. He swigged down the last of his beer and let the bottle follow just for good measure, then he slumped down into the cushions and threw his head back, squeezing his eyes closed against the hot, salty burn pressing behind his lids. 

'Jesus, I just miss you,' he whispered. 

Sam hadn't intended on this happening. In fact, he'd seriously considered taking Brady up on his offer to accompany him to his family's condo in Vale, Colorado for the winter break just to avoid this very circumstance. Sam had never been what anyone could even generously call social, though, and despite his yearning for a 'normal' life, he was still having significant issues adjusting to civilian life and all the mundane day to day stuff that went with it. So, an impromptu trip to a strange place to be in a crowd of people he had never met and knew nothing about was probably not the best idea. He had thanked Brady and politely declined, all the while reluctant to acknowledge the anorexic hope that Dean might actually show up, just because it was Christmas, and Sam couldn't chance missing him.

He wasn't above admitting he was lonely, or that he missed his brother. He'd been nearly paralyzed with homesickness his first week in California even though he had never known anything close to an actual home at any point in his life. It was all for Dean. Wherever Dean was, that was Sam's home. Trite a phrase as it was, they said home is where the heart is, and his heart was most definitely with Dean. In more ways than could be admitted to in the bright light of day.

Which was part of what made the separation that much more painful. It wasn't just his brother he was missing. It was his lover and his soul mate. The other half of himself. For five months, Sam walked around with an empty hole in his chest that he didn't know how to even begin to fill, or what to fill it with. He'd wallowed in the pain at first, let himself get angry and turn the blame for it on Dean. Then he'd thrown girls at it, parties at Brady's insistent urging, a few pretty boys that only ended up reminding him of Dean in the end, and lots and lots of diligent studying to remind himself what it was he'd given up the love of his life for.

None of it had worked. The emptiness was still there, and he wasn't sure if time was numbing the pain or he had just grown so used to it that he didn't notice its constant companionship anymore. Either way, he was distraction free tonight, unable to hide out in the library, and most of the student body had left to spend the break with family or friends. So, here he sat, alone and in the silence, nursing his brother's favorite brand of beer on an empty stomach, and staring at the ceiling like it held the secrets to the universe, through the watery haze of his vision.

Speaking of beer, he was tempted to go get another out of the mini-fridge, but he was feeling too tired and empty and fuzzy in a bad way around the edges. The group of carolers he had passed on his way back to the dorm after hiding out in the bar off the corner of campus until they closed up early for the holiday had made their way down the street and evidently decided to detour through the campus grounds, maybe in hopes of bringing some holiday cheer to the poor souls left alone tonight. The tinny sounds of their voices coming up from below made the inside of Sam's ears itch in rebellion and his heart ache so badly he could barely get in a breath. He pressed back harder into the couch cushions like he might be able to sink into them and disappear, or maybe delude himself into believing it was his brother's strong arms holding him tight and steady and whispering things in his ear that gave him a different kind of itch.

He shifted his hips and unconsciously rolled them, one hand sliding across his thigh to nudge up against the thickening ridge of his erection in his jeans. The beer was going to his head, or maybe it was the four or five shots of tequila he'd had at the bar beforehand. Whatever. It was going other places, too. To the pit of his belly and spreading warm up through his chest and down his legs, making his knees feel weak and jello-y even though he wasn't standing up.

'Such a girl, Sammy,' he could almost hear Dean whisper and he threw an arm across his eyes to block out the room and at least some of the offending sound of the singing below, and then dragged his hand back up his thigh and cupped the bulge in his jeans with a gentle hand. Dean would do that. It was Dean's specialty—driving Sam to the edge of distraction with the softest, lightest touches, breathing warm across his skin until he broke out in goosebumps, before taking him slow and hard and stroking him until Sam was ready to scream.

'Damn it, Dean,' he whispered again, twitching his hips upward to meet his kneading hand. He hooked the snap of his jeans with his thumb and pulled it open, drawing down the zipper to slide his fingers inside and graze over the soft cotton of his boxer briefs.

'So pretty, Sammy,' he heard Dean say inside his head. 'Always were such a pretty thing.'

Sam shifted his hand to run it up under the hem of his t-shirt and stroke a wide lazy circle across his chest and belly before letting it come back down to squeeze less than gently at his now fully hard cock.

'Want you, Dean,' Sam murmured to the dark in his half dream state brought on by the alcohol he wasn't accustomed to, that was causing a lowering of inhibitions and creating cracks in walls he had spent months armoring himself with against the awful pain of the void that was Dean's absence. 'Just...want you.'

He moaned a little and whimpered in the back of his throat, spreading his palm over his aching flesh, and trying to remember the sensation as his brother's hand on him—strong, calloused fingers twisting over velvety skin, just hard enough to make Sam groan and pant for more.

'I got you, baby brother.'

Sam let out a soft, child-like cry of yearning at the softly remembered words ghosting through his mind. His brain was so muzzy with liquor and exhaustion and loneliness that he almost believed he felt them ghosting across his cheek as well, on a warm breath that smelled lightly of whiskey and maybe the forbidden occasional indulgence of a cigarette that John would beat them both if he knew anything about. He tilted his head a little, turning to get closer to that imagined breath, unconsciously seeking out a mouth and plush lips that he knew so very well.

'Dean...' he whined softly, reaching deeper into his jeans, fondling his own balls and almost gasping at the fantasy sense-memory of his brother's hands on him just like this. 'Please...'

'Please, what, Sammy?' the ghost of his brother's voice whispered, and Sam imagined a hand wrapping around the back of his neck, cradling the base of his skull, urging his face to tilt up so the tip of a tongue could taste the corner of his mouth and hum in approval. 'Looks like you're doing pretty all right on your own, little brother.'

There was a gentle smirk in the words, a breathy laugh, and Sam squirmed a little, palming himself harder, lifting his mouth toward the phantom kiss.

'Such a fucking tease, Dean,' he murmured. 'Drank too much. Way too much.'

'How come?' Another touch of the velvet tongue, slip-sliding along his bottom lip, barely there in the lightness of its touch, but just enough to make him moan again.

'Miss you. Jerk. Always miss you,' Sam said quietly. 

'Well, 'm here now.'

Sam shook his head, huffed a mangled sound that couldn't decide if it was a laugh or a sob. 'Are not. Couldn't be....wouldn't be.'

'How come?' the persistent voice in his head asked again.

Sam wondered for a brief, disoriented moment why he was having this conversation with himself. It wasn't like he was saying anything new or revelatory that he hadn't thought a thousand times before. He'd wanted to tell Dean, sure. Wanted to tell Dean since the second he'd walked out the door five and a half months ago how much he missed him, wanted him, needed him. Loved him. But at the same time, he was certain that Dean would never come here in person, not where Sam could see him at any rate. His anger had probably died long ago, but that spoke nothing for the hurt of Sam's sudden desertion, and even if it was his big brother instinct to keep an eye on the young man he'd virtually raised himself, he wasn't going to come here and get in the way of Sam reaching for and taking hold of that 'normal' life he'd always wanted so much.

But Sam had no idea how to articulate that in his current state, so he only whimpered in response, twisting his hips under his hand, trying to leave this conversation behind in little pushes of heat and friction.

'How come?' The voice persisted, coming gentler this time, with a soft whuff of breath against his jaw and the imagined drag of two days worth of stubble against his own not so smooth cheek. 

''Cause you just...you just wouldn't. Wouldn't come here,' Sam mumbled. 'Let me walk. Walk away. And you didn't try to come after...'

'Didn't figure that was part of your grand plan, little bro.'

A hand pressed warm and flat across Sam's stomach, circled a little, massaging, then curved around to take firm hold of his hip, thumb rubbing across the sharp curve of the bone. 

'Not eatin' enough, Sammy.'

Hot, prickling tears stung Sam's eyes, and he grabbed himself hard, gasping at the shock of pain. He stroked himself a couple of times, painfully, almost like to punish himself. 'Don't talk like that!' he whispered, fierce and angry.

'Just lookin' out for you,' Dean's memory whispered. Because that's all it could be, just Sam's memory of him and how he had watched over, cared for, sacrificed and fought for his little brother, Sam had forfeited all that when he'd turned his back on Dean, and Dad, and the life. 

'Don't.'

Again. 'How come?'

Sam twisted his hand around his cock, the hard callouses from his Taurus scraping against the skin like Dean's had always done, sending little electric shocks zipping across his nerves and out to the tips of his toes, making them curl in anticipation. 

'Don't deserve it,' he gasped. 'Walked away. Left you behind.'

'That what you're thinking, Sammy? Huh?' 

Sam imagined a trail of hot kisses, slow and dragging, down the line of his throat, a brief sucking at his Adam's apple and then a tongue lapping, soft and wet into the hollow of his throat. He swallowed back a sob. 

'You think I'm holdin' it against you that you got out. Walked away.' The kisses paused and warm breath washed across the damp skin left in their wake, sending ripples of anxious pleasure shivering through him. 'You think I didn't want this for you, little brother? Wouldn't have wrapped it in a big red bow and handed it to you if I could've?'

Sam's breathing stumbled a little. He jerked his head in confusion, eyes fluttering toward open until a hand pressed gently over them, keeping them closed. 'But I...left you.'

The kisses resumed, tracing the curve of the threadbare, stretched-out-of-shape collar of his tee, and the hand that had cupped his hipbone moved across his groin with purpose and wrapped around his own hand as he continued to stroke himself. 

'Yeah, you did.' All motion paused, and Sam held his breath. 'Won't say it didn't sting some. Stung a lot. Never missed anyone in my life as much as I did— _do_ —you. Never loved anyone enough.'

Sam's eyes snapped open. 

Only they couldn't have. Because Dean's face, sincere like the first time he had confessed in a tight and frightened whisper, late one night three years ago in the back of the Impala where Sam was curled bruised and concussed after a hunt gone left handed while John gassed up the car, how much he loved, wanted, and adored Sam, slowly resolved into focus in front of him. 

At some point he had fallen asleep, passed out cold from the alcohol and emotional stress and too many nights in the last month studying for finals until all hours of the night instead of sleeping. He must have, because there was no other explanation. There was no way—

'Dean?' Sam asked, high and thin.

'Heya, Sammy,' Dean replied, mouth quirked just a little as he blinked slowly at Sam's widening eyes.

'You're here.'

'Looks like.'

'But. How?' Sam stared, gaze dancing over Dean's features, so beloved and so missed in the last months that he just wanted to spend hours looking and drink him in. 'A-and why?'

Dean shook his head a little, like he'd expected the disbelief but still found it amusing. He  leaned forward slowly and pressed a warm, dry kiss to Sam's mouth, curling his hand around Sam's long fingers and urging him back into a slow rhythm. 'Merry Christmas, Sammy.'

'Hate Christmas,' Sam mumbled against Dean's persistent mouth. 

'Yeah, I know you do. 'S why it's more a present for myself this time,' Dean replied.

Sam's eyes opened wide again, his breath hitched and held as Dean pressed his advantage and skated the tip of his tongue across Sam's bottom lip. 'You came because...?'

'Missed you, Sammy,' Dean murmured into Sam's mouth. His voice was rough, his eyes half closed and shuttered against the emotion he was afraid might give him away, his face set and suddenly very serious. 'Miss you so bad.'

Dean's fingers tightened around Sam's hand, curled hard into the hair at the nape of his neck. He dropped his mouth back to the curve of Sam's throat and licked a long line up to the soft, tender skin beneath his ear where he set his teeth with care but still enough pressure to make Sam gasp and writhe and buck upward into Dean's reinforcing grip.

'Dean, I want...'

Sam couldn't finish his thought, didn't know how. He just wanted. Everything. All of it. Anything Dean would offer. Because Sam couldn't escape the dread feeling that he would wake in the morning, sprawled on his second hand couch with the sagging cushions, jeans undone, sticky with tears and come, but alone. More alone than he had been in months, because this dream was making him remember all the things he had been missing so poignantly. 

And it was just a dream. Had to be. Sam couldn't let himself dare hope it was anymore than that.

'Shh. Shhh,' Dean hushed softly, dragging a thumb across Sam's cheek and under his eyes, smearing the tears there before he leaned up to kiss them away. 'Shh, I got you. I know what you want.'

Dean's weight slipped downward, and Sam didn't have to look to know he had gone down on his knees to knock Sam's apart and settle the breadth of his ribcage between Sam's thighs. He leaned forward to ruck up Sam's tee and blow a warm breath across his belly, catch the waistband of his briefs in his teeth and tug until the long, hot curve of him was exposed, hard and aching, to Dean's gaze. Dean grasped Sam's wrist and twisted until he was forced to let go of himself. He pushed Sam's flailing hand away and replaced it with his own. He stroked, up and down, twisting just a little, letting the rough pad of his thumb ride up and over the head every other pass, eliciting a gasping whimper of pleasure from Sam every time.

His other hand he glided down and over Sam's chest, then up under his shirt where he could touch hot skin, taut over muscles quivering with anticipation and need. He crooked his fingers just the slightest bit and dragged blunt nails through the coarse, sparse hairs low on Sam's belly, then lower still to scratch into the softer nest at the base of his cock. Sam rolled into the touch, lifted to it, whimpering needy little pleas all the while. Dean obliged him by leaning forward again, this time to brush his lips across the leaking head and dart his tongue out to lave a slick, hot stroke against the pulsing vein on the the underside. 

'Oh my god...Dean!' The words came out in a rush, bitten and strained with the desperate want flaming through Sam's blood. He thrust up, bumping the slick, soft, velvety head of his cock against Dean's smiling lips. The fucker was smiling. Almost grinning. Goddamn tease. 

Sam suddenly remembered that he had hands, and Dean had hair, and this was just a dream anyway, so he should be able to have it anyway he wanted. He shoved his fingers through Dean's hair, still far shorter than his own, but longer than he usually kept it, grown out slightly uneven and shaggy, for Dean anyway. He gripped and dragged and heard Dean blow out a breath that could have been a laugh just before he opened his mouth and closed his lips around Sam's thick, aching length.

Sam swore mightily, in several languages, which made Dean laugh and the vibrations against the sensitive skin of his cock made him cry out and arch his back, forcing himself deeper into Dean's mouth until he could feel Dean swallowing around him, tight and squeezing. Dean's hand was still on him, stroking in time with the steady slip and slide of his mouth over Sam, tongue cupping and swirling alternately around the swollen head. Sam scrabbled in Dean's hair for a better hold, tugged hard, and held him there, strong hands forcing Dean to stay and take the rolling thrusts Sam was doling out. His movements were getting edgier, more desperate, riding the cusp of agony because he was so lost in the exquisite pleasure of his brother's hot mouth on him that he could hardly tell it from pain. 

'Dean, I-I can't.' Sam sucked in a choking breath and curled his fingers fiercely and dragged Dean to him. Dean came willingly, tongue working hard at the underside of Sam's cock, while he swallowed and sucked, letting Sam have his way with him and complete control of the rhythm. Sam couldn't remember the last time Dean had let himself be used like this. He wasn't opposed to it, it just naturally fell that he would take a dominate position with Sam and do unto him, robbing Sam of all control merely by driving him out of his mind with ecstasy. 

Dean lifted up a little and Sam was dimly aware of his hand slipping away from where it had come to rest on Sam's thigh to unzip his jeans. He knew the moment Dean had a hand around himself, felt the tension in the strokes of his tongue increase, his mouth flood with saliva, making him gag just a little as Sam thrust harder into the new wetness, moaning loudly as the rhythm got slicker and sloppier. He felt the shifting of Dean's mass moving between his legs, his hips snapping forward again and again as he jacked himself hard in time to Sam fucking his mouth.

'Sammy...'

The name was a whispered groan around Sam's cock, and the frequency of vibration was just enough to send him sailing out into the void of white-light nothingness that crackled and fizzed and charged his whole body with an electric rush that flooded him from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. He rose up off the couch, yelling out, just one word. The first word, the only word, probably the last one he would ever speak or remember,

'Dean!'

Sam had no idea how long he lay there, sprawled against the cushions, hips hanging off the edge of the couch, arms spread and hands dangling, dragging in uneven breaths and feeling his blood surge, like surf against the cliff, in every extremity. He was aware of Dean's body going tense and taut and a guttural, near feral groan rumbling deep in his chest just before he collapsed between Sam's thighs, forehead resting against his hip and his arms reaching clumsily to snake around Sam's waist and cling.

When the roar had died down in his ears and he could feel himself again, like he might have momentarily left his skin to ride the wave of his orgasm as nothing more than ecstatic light, he lifted a limp hand to the back of Dean's neck and caressed there with the pads of his fingers, rubbing tiny circles until the tremors running through his brother's body eased and finally ceased. 

'Been a while,' Dean said, a little muffled against the denim bunched at Sam's thigh.

 Sam stilled. 'A while?'

 Dean nodded. 'Tried a dozen times or more, Sam. Never could. Just. Wasn't you.'

 Sam squeezed his eyes tight shut and swallowed against a brief pang of guilt and said, 'Wow,' before he remembered there was no need because this was still all just a dream and Dean's last words were proof positive of that. If Sam had gone to the lengths of wine, women, and the long song of denial, there was no way Dean mould not have thrown himself at anything and everything sexually mature and of age to try and forget Sam's abandonment of him.

 'Yeah, right. Who'da thunk, huh?'

 'Yeah, doesn't sound like you at all,' Sam whispered, a little slurred at the edges.

 'Need to sleep, little brother,' Dean said, and then Sam felt himself being bodily shifted on the couch. It never mattered how much bigger or taller than Dean Sam got, Dean would always have the ability to handle him like he'd done when he was six, just as effortlessly and easily.

 'Sure, 'Sam said sullenly because, yeah, dreams weren't made to last, especially ones like this. He felt a warm blanket being drawn up and tucked around him as he burrowed into his crooked arm under his head for a pillow. He felt Dean move away and cracked his eyes open a little to watch him slip out the door into the bright hallway.

So that was that, then. 

Sam breathed deep in an effort to loosen the sudden tightness in his chest and turned his face further into his arm until his hot breath was echoing back at him, rancid with the smell of alcohol. He wasn't going to cry. There was no reason to cry. Just because he was pathetically lonely and it was Christmas and he was missing his brother more than was probably healthy for any kind of relationship didn't mean he had to start acting like a girl about it.

He tucked his chin down, determined to go to sleep, and was dozing when the door whispered on its hinges and the snick of a lock turning tugged him a little way back toward consciousness. Or maybe it was the other way around and he was falling deeper, because he thought he felt a weight settle at the foot of the couch for a minute and then crawl up to wedge behind him between his body and the cushions with more stealthy grace than anyone Dean's size should be humanly gifted with.

'Budge over, Sasquatch.'

Sam barked a laugh and wiggled out toward the edge until he felt Dean's warm length settle and lean in all along his back. An arm pushed under his bent elbow and wrapped around his ribs possessively, and Sam pressed back into the heat, letting the arm tighten and draw him back.

'Night, Sammy,' Dean whispered and planted a light kiss just behind Sam's ear, nuzzling there for a moment before drawing back and pressing his nose deep between Sam's shoulder blades.

'Night, Dean,' Sam whispered back.

Morning might find Sam flopped on the couch, smelling of sweat and beer and come from jacking himself off to this perfect dream, with a raging hangover; but for now, to fall asleep like this in his brother's arms—even imagined as they had to be—made it all worth it.

***

Sam woke to the biting chill of a grey dawn and the sound of rain pattering in a steady rhythm at the window. The dorm boilers had evidently not lit because the tip of his nose felt like ice. He curled down into the blanket that was wrapped around him, right up to his chin, and kept his eyes closed against the weak light trying to announce the coming day at his window in watery hues of blue and violet. 

'Merry fucking Christmas,' he mumbled into a fistful of blanket.

'Well, same to you.'

Sam's eyes popped open and he threw himself upright, blankets pooling around his waist so he shivered in his thin t-shirt. He blinked once, slowly, and then again.

'Dean?'

'Yeah.' Dean held out a steaming cup of coffee in one hand while he lifted another to his lips and blew across it before taking a sip. 'Damn good thing your roomy believes in dark roast,' he said with a lopsided grin as Sam took the offered cup and screwed up his nose at the strong aroma of black coffee, but he drank it nonetheless, curling his cold fingers around the mug.

'Dean.'

Dean looked expectantly over the lip of his cup. 'Yeah, Sammy.'

'You're here.'

Dean looked at him for a second like he was a little slow. 'Yeah,' he said, drawing it out like he would for a five year old having a hard time grasping the concept.

Sam stared. 'I just...thought I was dreaming.'

Dean's look softened a little. 'Kinda wondered about that. You were pretty out of it.' His gaze went concerned for a half a heartbeat before it smoothed back out to casually interested. 'Don't usually drink like that, do you?'

Sam shook his head. 'Got lonely.'

Dean nodded and sipped at his coffee, gaze sliding away from Sam as he said quietly, 'I can relate.'

Sam set his cup down and stood up. 'You came.'

'Yup.' Dean kept his eyes in his mug.

'For Christmas,' Sam said, taking a step forward and untangling his legs from the blankets.

Dean shrugged. 'Yeah, well. I didn't want you mopin' around by yourself, like you so obviously _are_ , and you know how dad gets. I know Christmas was never a big thing for us and you hate it, but we've never not been...together, you know? And I—'

Sam flung himself across the couple of feet between them, sent his brother's coffee sloshing over the edge of his cup in an effort to gather him up in a huge hug.

'Hey, watch it!' Dean yelped, but his free arm was already gathering Sam up close, locking tight around his ribs as he buried his face in the curve of his little brother's shoulder.

They stood like that for several seconds, hot coffee dripping over Dean's wrist, but he could've cared less as he pulled in the perfect scent of his baby brother, something he would recognize anywhere that could always make him feel right with the world no matter how screwed up it, or they, currently were. He felt a line of small, fluttering kisses along his jaw that almost tickled and then,

'Merry Christmas, Dean,' Sam murmured. 

Dean sighed in quiet contentment, because yeah, there was still a life of monsters and shadows waiting for him less than twenty-four hours from now, and John was going to be pissed as hell when he came to and found Dean up and disappeared with only a cursory note and a promise to return in seventy-two hours, and leaving Sam behind—and he _would_ have to leave him behind—was probably going to hurt worse this time than when Sam had taken off in the middle of the night; but he didn't want to think about any of that right now. 

Now they had Christmas, as good an excuse as any to be together for at least a few hours, maybe pretend that all of that wasn't out there waiting. Just for a little while. Dean wrapped his other arm around Sam, spilled coffee and all, and pulled him even closer.  

'Merry Christmas to you, too, Sammy.'


End file.
